laws if they are living outside the U.S.”Kuenzi founded his firm in 2008,after working as an investmentbanker for Deutsche Bank in Lon-don and Moscow. “While I was livingabroad for about 10 years, one thingI learned — even though I was sur-rounded by investment professionals— was that no one had good informa-tion or understood clearly the issuesthat could affect Americans livingabroad,” he says.

Most of Thun Financial’s clients
live in Western Europe, especially in
Britain, France and Switzerland, with
others in Russia and the Middle East,
he says. The firm also advises clients
who now live in the U.S., but are contemplating living abroad.

he adds, “but, ironically, where theywant to move may be a lot worse.”People who are considering buyinga residence in a foreign country shouldresearch whether that nation restrictsexpatriates from owning or co-owningproperty or from putting property intoa trust, Hearn says.

HEAL TH INSURANCEAnother issue is health coverage.Retirees living in any foreign countryexcept North Korea or Cuba are eligibleto receive Social Security benefits, butno one living permanently outsidethe U.S. can receive Medicare benefits,Hearn says. Retirees either have toobtain health insurance offered in thecountries where they live or acquire antime or establishes permanent resi-dency. “Someone relocating overseaspart-time could choose his or herMedicare as a backup, and then theywould return stateside for serioushealth care,” Peddicord says.

WORKING ABROAD

“A lot of expatriates are looking to sup-plement their retirement budgets, andare considering starting or running abusiness,” Peddicord says. “The big-picture questions to answer are, Canyou start your business with a portablelaptop, or do you need brick and mor-tar? You need to look at the local mar-ket to determine the costs of running abusiness there.”Peddicord considers Panama to be

Currency differences matter: If clients are holding all their investmentsin U.S. assets but paying expenses in rupees, does that make sense?

Kuenzi and his team post research
articles on the firm’s website, as well
as sites that are devoted to expatriate
issues, like Expatica and Expat Focus.
The articles are about topics particularly critical to this clientele, such as
the reporting requirements of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.

“We also discuss with our clientslocal taxation of retirement benefits,double taxation and treaty issues,”Kuenzi says. “We also talk about thingslike: If they are holding all of theirinvestments in U.S. assets but payingtheir retirement expenses in rupees,does that make sense? They have tothink through the currency differencesand valuations in their portfolios.”Not all of the people who ThunFinancial deals with are motivated byeconomic concerns. A fair number are“fed up with America, and they wantto leave and go someplace else,” Kue-nzi says. “Some are politically driven,”

international health insurance policy.
The premiums on these policies can
vary widely, depending on how much a
person is willing to pay out of pocket.

Kathleen Peddicord, author of Howto Retire Overseas: Everything You Needto Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad,says a typical international plan witha $3,400 deductible might cost a 60-year-old about $180 a month. “By farthe cheapest is local insurance, whereyou pay $100 or less, but it’s only goingto cover that country,” Peddicord says.Bupa International bills itself as thelargest expatriate health insurer, withmore than 800,000 customers in 190countries. “Bupa covers more coun-tries except for the U.S.,” Peddicordsays. “We recommend you customizean international policy based on thecountry where you will be living.”Health care coverage in cer-tain countries may also depend onwhether a person lives there part-one of the best places to run a busi-ness, and France — with “extraordi-nary” regulations, taxes and high laborcosts — to be one of the worst.